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I love it when US companies meet Dutch labor laws.
by sebazzz 4y ago
I love it when US companies meet Dutch labor laws.
- MomoXenosaga 4y agoAmerican companies are not as innovative as they think- they just want to turn back the clock to the 19th century.
- Xelynega 4y agoYou're telling me it's not innovative to run psychological experiments on children without any approval from an ethics board? Sounds pretty innovative to me
- CalRobert 4y agoOr basically any labour laws. "You mean you can't just be on call with a 5 minute SLA for 14 days straight non-stop?
- daenney 4y ago“Hey so the way we do on-call is violating labour laws for all EU employees”. I’ve had very fun conversations with HR and Legal about this. There’s so many fun things. Mandatory rest periods, on-call on weekends in some countries requiring additional work, having to actually pay people, needing to provide them with the equipment to be on-call (phone and subscription) and on it goes.
- belter 4y agoPlus cue in the shock of US Employees, when they realize his court costs to sue his employer were less than 500 dollars.
- elorm 4y agoFiling fees. There's still a legal fee threshold.
- formerly_proven 4y agoThis isn't harmonized across the EU though, e.g. in German labor courts each side pays their own fees and lawyers regardless of outcome. So even a completely illegal action by your employer can/will still cost you hundreds to thousands of euros when you go and fight it. (The flip side is you don't have to pay for a team of expensive corpo-lawyers in case you loose)
- Xylakant 4y agoThe rules depend on what court you go to. In the first instance, both sides pay their own lawyers, but the court fees are paid by the loosing party (1). The fees are usually not very high, so that‘s not much of a barrier. On an appeal, the loosing party pays all fees, including the opponents lawyers (1). Being in a union pays off in labor court: Unions usually offer sending their legal staff instead of a lawyer that you‘d need to personally retain. This substantially reduces the costs of a court case for the employee. See https://www.klugo.de/ratgeber/arbeitsgericht-kosten https://www.klugo.de/ratgeber/arbeitsgericht-kosten (1) or shared, on partial wins.
- sidewndr46 4y agoYou're applying the American Rule backwards. There is no default presumption in the US legal system that you pay the winner's legal fees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_rule_(attorney%27s_fees) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_rule_(attorney%27s_fe...
- RalfWausE 4y agoMost people in germany (at least the ones with common sense) have a "Arbeitsrechtsschutz", a insurance which covers legal fees, a lawyer and so on. As this insurance is very cheap (i pay around 30 Euros a month) i can only recommend this for anyone working in germany.
- tyfon 4y agoIn Norwegian civil court, the loser pays the legal bills for both. It may seem a bit harsh, but it does prevent frivolous law suits. For work related cases, if you are in a union, they will foot the bill in most cases.
- trevvr 4y agoI wonder if this makes court cases a pretty high stakes game for even the smallest of issues? Interesting concept all the same.
- Ekaros 4y agoAt least in Finland it still makes things quite ugly from cost perspective. It is not uncommon to read about cases where costs are in tens of thousand for real-estate. Probably one of the more common things to take in court.
- denton-scratch 4y ago> I wonder if this makes court cases a pretty high stakes game Stay away from courts! If your case goes before a judge, you're in casino country. Unless you're on the hook for some criminal offence, tell your lawyer to negotiate a settlement. Once a civil case comes before a judge, that usually means that there's a legal issue to be decided that nobody agrees on, which means that you can't predict how the cookie might crumble.
- Tor3 4y agoThe loser doesn't always pay for both. In some cases (well, many actually), or at least in cases where party A sues party B and loses, the court decides that it wasn't all clear-cut and party A was right to get a resolution through the court system. In that case both may end up paying their respective legal bills.
- mrweasel 4y agoHonestly I'd just have asked my union to deal with it... but that a little more in membership fee, compared to the €585, but it would have gotten me a lawyer who understands labour laws.
- geek_at 4y agoEuropean in general. My wife works for a biotech company in Austria which was recently aquired by an american company and it's so funny to hear about their efforts to adapt to EU law and culture. Most of their training material is still unchanged from their US branch so there are things they list as benefits for all employees like - 3 Weeks paid vacation (we get 5 by law) - Health insurance (you know the drill) - 3 weeks parental leave (we get 1 year for 80% pay, first 6 months full pay, then 5 years protection against dismissal) - 5 days paid care leave for when your kid is sick (we get 12) So their benefits which makes them think make them attactive are all below basic EU law that even store clerks get
- phaer 4y agoAll true, but it might be worth mentioning that most of those benefits are still Austrian law, not European law. So while they generally better than the US, other EU states might lack some of those law.
- Symbiote 4y agoMany countries go further, but the EU does require a minimum. - 4 weeks paid holiday - 4 months unpaid parental leave, 14 weeks paid for the mother https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_labour_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_labour_law is the best overview I can find.
- sebazzz 4y agoI got indeed 20 by law and 14 on top of that for a total of 34, but the latter is the exception. In IT 26-28 days are common.
- warent 4y agoFor what it's worth I'm pretty sure there are systems in place in these countries which actually make it possible. right? Like, there are insurances and government assistance programs that businesses use to pay for things like parental leave. US businesses get no such help. So what is often attributed to US business greed is actually political greed, while businesses are just casualties.
- xiphias2 4y agoWhile quality of life in Europe is still great, EU GDP share of the world going down is starting to effect European people more (especially now with the proxy war between US and Russia). I wish Europeans were a bit more business savy and corporate, and not see businesses as just bad things that are part of life, but of course when I’m in US I see the other extreme where businesses want to extract all value from me all the time, and it gets tiring.
- myko 4y ago> especially now with the proxy war between US and Russia This is not a proxy war between the US and Russia. Ukraine nor Russia started this conflict at the behest or instigation of the US. The US (and NATO, the entire western world really) are supportive of Ukraine but it's important to note that Ukraine is not a puppet of the US and that Putin started this conflict.
- trasz 4y agoIt could be argued it’s a proxy war between NATO and some… unknown world power, with Russia as a proxy. Although I don’t think Chinese would be able to pull it off.
- whoooooo123 4y agoThe war is "between" Russia and Ukraine but the US is funding and arming Ukraine because the US wants to hurt Russia. How is that not the dictionary definition of a "proxy war"? Swap the US and Russia and replace "Ukraine" with "North Vietnam" and you have a historical conflict which everyone agrees was a proxy war. How is this different?
- watwut 4y agoEU countries are funding and arming Ukraine too. Baltic states and Poland are the ones pushing the most for support for Ukraine. And obviously, all actual fighting and dying is done by Ukrainians. They are the ones being tortured and oppressed on occupied territories too. If Russia won, all Ukrainians would be oppressed by Russia.
- brightball 4y agoYou say that, but stories like this will just mean US companies hire fewer Dutch remotes. I’ve already seen it happen, after legal claims using “lines of code” to assert ownership of the code base.
- Beltalowda 4y agoMy impression is that the Dutch labour laws are mostly designed for working-class employees, and they actually work fairly well for that, but once you move up in the pay range it starts breaking down. I've worked at several businesses that had expensive "unfirable" employees, and if people decide to be difficult they can draw out the firing process for years. I've been let go earlier this year in spite of good performance reviews because they thought I'd probably do fine, but weren't 100% sure and they didn't want to take the financial risk of being "stuck" with me.
- outside1234 4y agoWhich is why you make 50% less by the way. Not dumping on the laws, which I think are great, and are probably worth it overall, but there is a cost.
- unity1001 4y ago> Which is why you make 50% less by the way They make 50% less. And they don't have to pay $1000 per head for private insurance, more for other insurance, $3000/month for being able to be a roommate in a 30 m2 apartment. Also they have disability, reasonable retirement, paid vacations and everything that are pretty much nonexistent for American employees.
- malshe 4y agoIf you use some extreme examples then sure living in the US can be very expensive. But for most of us the things are not this bad. I am a professor and even with the academic pay I save about 30% of my salary even after paying all the expenses. The key is to live in a lower cost US state where the salaries are still quite high compared to most of the world.
- Spivak 4y agoSame, being DINKs we literally save 85% of our monthly cash flow while maxing out two IRAs, two employer matched 401ks, and two HSAs, and carry no debt. We don’t even make that much by US coastal standards. My retired grandparents have total monthly expenses of $3k but make $12k/mo from their pensions plus around a million in retirement accounts. Their entire careers they barely made more than the median household income and had kids. The advantage of making a lot of money in expensive cities is you get an amazing deal when you pay “world rates” for things. But living in cheap medium size cities gives you an absolutely fucktonne of purchasing power. Our total monthly expenses including rent, utilities, internet, food, insurances, gas is less than $2.5k and we live in a nice well appointed flat.
- unity1001 4y ago> But for most of us the things are not this bad. I am a professor If you are a professor, you are not one of the 'most of us'. For most, things are really that bad. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/13/americas-dirty-little-secret-42-million-are-suffering-from-hunger.html https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/13/americas-dirty-little-secret... There are millions of working families where both parents and even children work and yet they still suffer hunger.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago> I love it when US companies meet Dutch labor laws. This is the first time I've heard of any US company requiring an employee to keep a camera on themselves 9 hours per day. Obviously, that's not some standard US company practice. I wouldn't be surprised if these same practices would fail in a US court.
- Twirrim 4y agoIt's been coming up a lot, especially since the pandemic started. Sadly this isn't an extreme example.
- throwaway743 4y agoSome in-office workers in US, usually unknowingly, have their desktop web cam and other monitoring tools recording them at all times. It's sad and disgusting to say the least. Last employer did this without the status led turned on. They also recorded, keystrokes, push notifications attached to volume changes and media players, used sslstrip/mitm on web traffic, among other things. Sadly, wouldn't be surprised if the same has carried over to remote.
- rossdavidh 4y agoThis. I have worked at a number of US employers, and if a US employee sued over similar circumstances, they would almost certainly win (IANAL). There's a whole long process that you need to go through to fire someone, especially if the organization is medium to large, and far more serious sounding infractions have been found to be insufficient cause for firing. Given that he said he was already sharing his screen, it's hard to see why a webcam would be a legally defensible requirement, even in the U.S. One big difference is the variability of the outcome in the U.S. You might get a result where such a firing is upheld, or you might get several million $ in punitive damages. Most companies don't care to roll the dice.
- Beltalowda 4y agoI recently did an interview with a German company, and they had the same requirement. They mentioned it early on, and it was probably the shortest interview I ever did.
- canacrypto 4y agoA first glance, this may sound like a case of a bad US company meeting reasonable labor laws, but Euro laws of often unreasonably restrictive. Companies choose to leave entirely, as happened here. How many people lost their jobs so this one person could have their payout? This company definitely sucks, but still unfortunate for others caught in the crossfire.
- tmnvdb 4y agoI think we will be okay without this kind of company, given employment rate is one of the highest in the world and a main problem at the moment is labor shortages... But thanks for your "concern"
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- Aeolun 4y agoI do not, since they invariably flee back to the US before ponying up anything they deem unreasonable. Coming from the ‘land of the free’ that’s basically anything.